There will never be Mideast Peace...

[Lyion]

Islam means submission. For those who do not submit, how do you fight the hate and dogma being presented?

I doubt if we'll see peace in the mideast in my lifetime. The dream is hollow, because the people and their beliefs do not respect others.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060804/D8J9LMVG0.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Hundreds of thousands of Shiites chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" marched through the streets of Baghdad's biggest Shiite district Friday in a show of support for Hezbollah militants battling Israeli troops in Lebanon.

No violence was reported during the rally in the Sadr City neighborhood. But at least 35 people were killed elsewhere in Iraq, many of them in a car bombing and gunbattle in the northern city of Mosul.

The demonstration was the biggest in the Middle East in support of Hezbollah since the Israeli army launched an offensive July 12 after a guerrilla raid on northern Israel. The protest was organized by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose political movement built around the Mahdi Army militia has been modeled after Hezbollah.

Al-Sadr summoned followers from throughout the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq to converge on Baghdad for the rally but he did not attend.

Demonstrators, wearing white burial shrouds symbolizing their willingness to die for Hezbollah, waved the group's yellow banner and chanted slogans in support of its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who has attained a cult status in the Arab world for his defiance of Israel.

"Allah, Allah, give victory to Hassan Nasrallah," the crowd chanted.

"Mahdi Army and Hezbollah are one. Let them confront us if they dare," the predominantly male crowd shouted, waving the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iraq.

Many walked with umbrellas in the searing afternoon sun. Volunteers sprayed them with water.

"I am wearing the shroud and I am ready to meet martyrdom," said Mohammed Khalaf, 35, owner of a clothes shop in the southern city of Amarah.

Al-Sadr followers painted U.S. and Israeli flags on the main road leading to the rally site, and demonstrators stepped on them - a gesture of contempt in Iraq. Alongside the painted flags was written: "These are the terrorists."

Protesters set fire to American and Israeli flags, as well as effigies of President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, showing the men with Dracula teeth. "Saddam and Bush, Two Faces of One Coin" was scrawled on Bush's effigy.

Iraqi government television said the Defense Ministry had approved the demonstration, a sign of public anger over Israel's offensive and of al-Sadr's stature as a major player in Iraqi politics.

"I consider my participation in this rally a religious duty. I am proud to join this crowd and I am ready to die for the sake of Lebanon," said Khazim al-Ibadi, 40, a government employee from Hillah.

Although the rally was about Hezbollah, it was also a show of strength by al-Sadr. Many people worried the presence of so many Shiite demonstrators - most of them from the Mahdi Army - would add to sectarian tensions in the city, which has seen almost daily clashes between Shiite and Sunni extremists.

(AP) Carrying portraits of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah,...
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The sectarian violence escalated after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra unleashed a wave of reprisal attacks on Sunnis nationwide.

On Thursday, Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told a Senate committee in Washington that sectarian violence in Iraq "is probably as bad as I have seen it" and that if the spiral continued the country "could move toward civil war."

In the latest violence, at least 12 people were killed Friday when Iraqi security forces fought gunbattles with suspected insurgents in Mosul after a suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol, said the provincial police commander, Maj. Gen. Withiq al-Hamdani. He said that the bombing killed four policemen and that eight insurgents died in the subsequent gunbattle.

On Thursday evening, a suicide bomber drove into a soccer field in the town of Hatra near Mosul, setting off a blast that killed seven spectators and three policemen police Col. Abdul Karim Ahmed Khalaf said. Six civilians and nine policemen were injured, he said.

On Friday, three mortar shells hit a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, killing two people, wounding four and damaging some stores, police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid, said.

An engineer was shot dead and an unidentified body, showing signs of torture, was found in western Baghdad.

Separately, gunmen shot and killed four people and wounded eight from a Shiite family late Thursday in Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad, police Lt. Hussam al-Dujeili said.

The U.S. military said in a statement that coalition forces killed at least three "terrorists" during an air strike and multiple raids southeast of Baghdad on Thursday.

[mofish]

Yep, things are going to hell fast over there.

Here are a bunch of Little Hitler's (Nasrallah) speech snippets. Kind of long. He is off of Israel's do-not-assassinate list. Good riddance to the warmonger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zzOwQJY ... ed&search=

[Reynaldo]

I don't understand how anyone with a religious background (including Bush), can think there's anything that can be done to create peace there. Religion is the one topic that there's no middle ground on that can be debated and reach compromises.

[Zanchief]

Lyion, does this mean you finally concede that Iraq was a bad idea.

[Lyion]

The idea was to create democracy to enact change from within the Middle East. It's not a slow process. It's what we did in Japan, and I think it turned out well.

I'm not sure, Zan. I think we went in for the right reasons, but only time will tell if it was the right decision. For the short term, it obviously looks like a bad move. I'm almost to the point where I think we should split Iraq into three parts, one for the Kurds, one for the Shi'ites, and one for the Sunnis.

Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

[Zanchief]

The idea was to create democracy to enact change from within the Middle East.

That's what they say NOW. But I don't want to get into that whole thing.

If you think peace in the Middle East is now hopeless because you can't win a war against an ideology (what I've been saying since day one) then creating a democratic state within the Middle East isn't going to help.

[Arlos]

The difference is, Lyion, Japan wanted us there from the start. They also have a completely and totally different mindset than the people in the middle east do. Japan was always a very regimented society, with a centuries-long tradition of obediance to those higher-up than you. Well, when they surrendered to the US at the end of WW2, that put the US in the position of top dog in their ranking system. So, they were quite happy to follow along with whatever directives we put into place. Not to mention, eastern religions tend to be about balance, living in harmony, etc, and are very different from Islam, and thus we weren't fighting against a faith-based ideology as well as any social-based resistance.

Simply because a tactic worked in one place in one set of circumstances doesn't mean that it is even remotely applicable in others. Going into Iraq was a collosal blunder. It has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, damaged our standing with the world community, and actually lessened our potential to threaten military strikes, as everyone knows we're being stretched to the limit as far as ground forces are concerned. There's no realistic way we could invade Iran, Syria, North Korea, or anywhere else right now, and those countries know it.

I predicted a long time ago that the end result of this was going to be another fundamentalist islamic regime on the model of Iran, who would present us with at least as many problems that Saddam did. Well, I'm sorry to say that every day it looks moreand more like that's exactly what's happening.

I think that history will record the invasion of Iraq as one of the US's biggest blunders ever, on par with Vietnam, even if it doesn't achieve the same body count.

-Arlos

[Lueyen]

I have wondered on a number of occasions, how much of Iran's actions and policy regarding what is going on between Israel and the Hezbollah is influenced by having somewhere around 175,000 US troops near it's border. I don't think it's any secret that Iran is supplying Hezbollah with arms, but I wonder if the US didn't have the presence there if Iran would be more directly involved.

As it stands both the US and Iran are not directly involving themselves in the fighting, rather supplying the side they support. The situation could very well escalate to one or the other getting involved and I think that will likely draw the other into a direct conflict.

[Harrison]

My prediction:

If ever we decide to fuck Iran's shit up, their own people and military will overthrow the fuckstick government like it did before.

[mofish]

Iran has a large, highly educated, dissenting population. They just need a chance. Iran could become a great country one day. In the distant future anyway. Every Iranian Ive met stateside has been very cool. Used to serve an Iranian doctor coffee all the time, great guy.

[Narrock]

Iran has a large, highly educated, dissenting population. They just need a chance. Iran could become a great country one day. In the distant future anyway. Every Iranian Ive met stateside has been very cool. Used to serve an Iranian doctor coffee all the time, great guy.

An Iranian chick cuts my hair. She's hawt, and very nice.

[Polonious]

There is a lot of focus on how the US decision to get involved in Iraq will be looked upon down the road. I would also flip that around and ask how the arabs in the region will be perceived as well.

Did they take the opportunity presented by the removal of Saddam and the election of a new representative government to build a world class country? Iraq with all that oil revenue could be developed into an amazing place. (see the UAE)

Or, did they piss it all away?

No one is perfect. We all have our certain beliefs and mindsets. From the outside looking in, it just seems that they are blowing a great opportunity.

Polo

[Lyion]

There is a lot of focus on how the US decision to get involved in Iraq will be looked upon down the road. I would also flip that around and ask how the arabs in the region will be perceived as well.

Did they take the opportunity presented by the removal of Saddam and the election of a new representative government to build a world class country? Iraq with all that oil revenue could be developed into an amazing place. (see the UAE)

Or, did they piss it all away?

No one is perfect. We all have our certain beliefs and mindsets. From the outside looking in, it just seems that they are blowing a great opportunity.

Iran had a great standard of living in 1979 when we were buddies with the Shah. Now, their standard of living is poor, even with massive oil revenues.

Kurdistan is completely stable, peaceful and doing great. A large portion of Iraq is stable and doing ok.

The problem remains the money and support pouring in from other Arab league countries who do not want a democracy, and the local militia's and Al Qaeda contacts who continue to foment the pot of insurrection.

I do feel better in that it was 14,000 people at this demonstration, and they were mostly supporters of Moqtada Al Sadr, which puts it in a better light. He wants his own version of Hezbollah, but again, we're not there forever, only until the government is self sustaining and won't crater when we pull out.

Whether the war was the right decision or not is irrelevent. We need to stay there and help the Iraqi government and infrastructure become viable, in my opinion.

[mofish]

Whether the war was the right decision or not is irrelevent. We need to stay there and help the Iraqi government and infrastructure become viable, in my opinion.

Agreed. I certainly have my problems with our foreign policy, especially Iraq. But I do not want to leave them in the sling. Im not sure we can do anything about that now though Im afraid. Still, unlike some of my liberal colleagues, Im not confident US troop withdrawal anytime soon is the best way to go.